Properties of trapped neutrons interacting with realistic nuclear Hamiltonians

TL;DR

This paper investigates the properties of neutron drops under various nuclear Hamiltonians using advanced computational methods, providing benchmarks and insights into neutron matter and energy-density functionals.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive comparison of neutron drop properties across different realistic nuclear Hamiltonians using quantum Monte Carlo and no-core configuration techniques.

Findings

Neutron drop energies vary with different Hamiltonians.

Spin-orbit splittings and radii are characterized for various potentials.

Results serve as benchmarks for many-body methods and energy-density functional constraints.

Abstract

We calculate properties of neutron drops in external potentials using both quantum Monte Carlo and no-core full configuration techniques. The properties of the external wells are varied to examine different density profiles. We compare neutron drop results given by a selection of nuclear Hamiltonians, including realistic two-body interactions as well as several three-body forces. We compute a range of properties for the neutron drops: ground-state energies, spin-orbit splittings, excitation energies, radial densities and rms radii. We compare the equations of state for neutron matter for several of these Hamiltonians. Our results can be used as benchmarks to test other many-body techniques, and to constrain properties of energy-density functionals.